Pope Benedict’s One Unforgivable Failure

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Nothing distinguished the papacy of
Pope Benedict XVI so much as the way in which he is leaving.

We should be grateful that he realizes his body is failing
him -- most people in power do not -- and is abdicating. But
let’s not forget that it was Benedict who stood mostly mute as
the sexual abuse of children by priests continued.

Benedict had a chance to be a great pope in one way and one
way only: by recognizing the evil and dealing with it even when
it meant punishing powerful prelates. He did not.

He had an opportunity to do so when he was appointed in
1981 to lead the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
which was charged with dealing with the cascading number of
sexual abuse cases. That appointment was odd given that when he
was archbishop of Munich, Benedict -- then known as Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger -- had approved the transfer of priest and
child molester Peter Hullermann. Even as he learned of the
hundreds of Hullermanns and became the most knowledgeable high-ranking church official on the subject, Ratzinger chose to
protect priests, bishops and cardinals at the cost of ignoring
legions of abused children.

He was rewarded for his service by being elected to the
papacy in 2005. Considering that he was elected by the very
cardinals he was protecting, this development was hardly
surprising.

Reprimanding Nuns

Still, it’s never too late to do the right thing. As pope,
Ratzinger could have been Paul on the road to Damascus,
rectifying the incalculable harm done to thousands of innocent
children by removing the culpable priests, bishops and cardinals
from power. Instead, Pope Benedict’s almost eight-year tenure
was marked by coverups coming to light in Ireland, Australia,
the U.S. and Germany. He directed most of his energies to
keeping women and gay men out of the priesthood and reprimanding
nuns who were paying insufficient attention to his
pronouncements.

Under his leadership, the church continued to deny its
perfidy. As late as 2009, the Vatican pushed the line that it
wasn’t priests who were responsible for the sexual abuse of
children -- it was gay men. In an official response to the
United Nations Human Rights Council, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi
said that 80 percent to 90 percent of abusive priests were not
pedophiles but part of a “sexual orientation minority” of
homosexuals attracted to adolescent boys. For good measure, he
also complained that Protestants and Jews, baby sitters and
family members were worse than priests.

Why pick on the Catholic clergy? This was consistent with
the pope’s insistence that the church would investigate itself
behind closed doors. The “standards of conduct appropriate to
civil society,” he wrote in 1990, when he led the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, “cannot be purely and simply
applied to the church.”

Meanwhile, as the pope ignored the mission of the church to
comfort the afflicted even if it means afflicting the
comfortable, the wheels of secular justice continued to grind.
This month authorities caught up with Cardinal Roger Mahony, the
former archbishop of Los Angeles. Thousands of pages of
personnel files released by court order revealed how Mahony
chose to reassign the abusers rather than protect parishioners.

Because part of the motivation to tamp down the scandal was
financial -- claims to pay victims would cost the church more
than $650 million -- Mahony had to get inventive. To pay off
claims, he tapped $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund.
Those poor souls weren’t going to complain.

Anyone who’s forgotten the horror of the abuse should watch
the HBO documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa,” about an abusive priest
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He targeted deaf children for obvious
reasons -- and even after his superiors found out what he was
doing, he remained a priest until he died.

Protecting Children

With Benedict’s resignation comes another chance for the
church to change direction. When that puff of white smoke comes
up from the Vatican chimney, it could herald the election of a
cardinal from the developing world. Maybe he will remember what
it’s like to be powerless and identify with the children who
trusted the priests, instead of with his fellow cardinals who
covered up for them.

Still, it’s hard to be optimistic that the church will
right itself. Mahony was stripped of some of his duties after
his disgraceful complicity in the sexual abuse scandal. But he
has not lost his most solemn privilege: He will be joining the
conclave to vote on the next pope. “I look forward to traveling
to Rome soon to help thank Pope Benedict XVI for his gifted
service to the Church,” he said in a statement.

At least Mahony won’t be joined by one of his fellow
cardinals. It is church policy, not human decency, that will
prevent Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, ground
zero of the abuse scandal, from taking part in the selection of
Benedict’s successor. For papal elections, the age of
disenfranchisement is 80. Law is 81, praise the Lord.

(Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist. The
opinions expressed are her own.)